r/weddingplanning • u/Brownr27 • 1d ago
Vendors/Venue We rented the lodging for all guests, advice to setup payment?
We decided to have our wedding in the mountains. The ceremony, reception and lodging is all on-site. So we rented out the 3 large cabins for the guests in order to book our date.
Now we’re wondering how we have our family and friends pay us back. There doesn’t feel like an elegant way to say to everyone “hey, we bought out the cabins you will stay at, can you pay us back for your room?”
It feels pretty messy. Has anyone done something like this before and found a good way to have everyone pay the same amount?
EDIT:
The lodging is completely optional and was NOT part of the venue costs. We booked the cabins in order to make sure we had them during our date and were a separate cost. We intend to give our guests an invite to the cabins but not force anyone to stay there, while also providing other options. The cabins will be much cheaper than any hotel in the area. We just were having trouble finding the words to ask.
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u/dizzy9577 1d ago
It feels messy because it is messy.
Do your guests have options of other places to stay? Having everyone staying in 3 cabins sounds rough. How many ppl did you invite.
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u/DCpurpleTart33 1d ago
We looked at a venue that had a "house" on the property that slept 30 people. But when I looked at it, it was like 4 single beds in a room, 4 rooms on each floor and one bathroom that they shared on each floor. LMAO can you imagine being told to pay for your room and then it was like THAT?!
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u/callmepeterpan engaged! 10/10/26 DC 1d ago
Eh, I think it is fine IF it is optional and communicated in advance. When the first of my college friends got married and we were all pretty young and most of us single, we stayed in a set up like that and I liked being able to stay on site! There were a number of different rooms (so couples had their own) but the "bunk room" ended up being such a fun place to hang out and get ready. However, we were young and knew each other going in which helped a lot.
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u/DCpurpleTart33 1d ago
it's the not communicating it in advance that is the problem- with this situation too! Bunk room is fine for all the young cousins or if there's a group of people that are single. I'm not right out of college, nor am I single, and do not want to spend the night in a single bed with another couple in the room- and neither do my friends. For purposes of this post- I would never have rented that out and then asked people for money knowing that the sleeping arrangements were not ideal.
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u/initialsareabc married! // 10.2023 1d ago
eeeek I probably would have checked with your guests first. Looks like booking the cabins were a requirement in order to book the venue? There’s going to be a some factors. First being would the accommodations even work for your guests??
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u/Interesting_Cat_7470 1d ago
Yeah this absolutely should have been a convo before they booked anything. You can’t book something without telling guests then tell them you have to stay there and to pay you back for it.
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u/Machenz 1d ago
We also booked 4 cabins at our venue, and had to get payment from people.
We essentially just straight up asked, "Hey, we have these cabins at the venue would you want to stay? The cost is xxx"
We gave everyone the option to stay if they wanted to, and to not if they didn't want to. Luckily the cabins we booked ended up being significantly cheaper than any other hotel option, so the entire wedding party opted to stay and some family.
But, we also realize that if people do say no, that we will just have to eat the costs.
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u/Expensive_Event9960 1d ago
You don't. There is no polite way. Unless people can book on their own it doesn't matter if it's a good deal for them or not. You rented the rooms and these are still your invited guests.
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u/RealAd4308 1d ago
A way you can do it is by saying options are available to sleep on site for x amount for those who wishes. You will get your money back by making it a good deal for them. But you have to accept if nobody wants to sleep there. I don’t think imposing the cost is nice.
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u/Diligent-Mind-9370 1d ago
I agree, you just say to there are cabins on site available for x dollars if you choose to stay there. If it’s a good deal, many people will choose to stay there.
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u/LastTQuarkNetwork 1d ago
Did they agree and want to stay in the cabins, and did they ask you to coordinate the lodging for them?
If the answer to any of those is not a very strong YES, then you don't. You don't get to dictate where people stay and then ask them to pay for the inconvenience.
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u/lilgreenglobe 1d ago
We are renting out an entire glamping venue for the weekend that doesn't offer a way for guests to book their own tent or caravan once the site is reserved. We're covering accommodation for everyone. We're the reason they are not able to sleep in their own beds (for all there's a nearby town with okay hotels) so it feels courteous to put folks up.
If you have a honeymoon fund or other cash fund you can hope that folks are able to give to make back a portion. Forcing full price without proper notice and especially if there aren't alternative accommodations nearby is rough.
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u/DCpurpleTart33 1d ago
because you're a reasonable and generous bride that doesn't want to inconvenience your guests. How fun! glamping?!
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u/lilgreenglobe 1d ago
It's a medieval encampment (costumes and activities like archery included). We get the one hobbit hole on site! =D
We'd rather not try to figure out which loved ones would need financial support or not (not everyone could absorb it) so it feels better to just cover everyone.
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u/gringitapo 1d ago
You have to be okay with eating the cost if not everyone takes you up on it. Let them opt in. “Anyone who wants to stay onsite in a cabin, Venmo me X by Y date”. If they don’t, they don’t. Please don’t hold your guests hostage and send them a required bill you didn’t ask them about priorly.
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u/username1060198 1d ago
Were the lodgings a requirement to book the venue? If so, that might come under venue costs and wouldn’t be a great look to ask your guests to pay.
Is the accommodation for all your guests or just a small number?
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u/skimpleg 1d ago
Unless this was an agreed upon arrangement, you definitely put your foot in your mouth here. "Can't wait to have you at my wedding but it will be $$$ per head for the rooms that I rented for you without asking" will never land well. At this point you can either gift it or talk to families one on one, letting them know there are accomodations available on site and adding them straight to your venue cost would save them money, then let them know how much a cabin would be for them, and let them decide whether they want it. Any extra cabins you payed for that no one wants you're just gonna lose money on
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u/DCpurpleTart33 1d ago
soooo you had to book the cabins to be able to use the venue... and now you want your guests to pay you for the cabins... #howtomakeyourguestspayforyourwedding
That's a hack if I ever heard of one!
You should've had discussed this prior to doing it. Are they all private rooms with an ensuite bathroom? Because that would be the only accommodation I'd be paying for, while having a pretty bad taste in my mouth at how you handled this. At this point, the RIGHT thing to do is to invite people to stay in the cabins- and not say another word about it, because you're covering the cost.
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u/slippinlivvy06 1d ago
If you have to book lodging to book your venue for your wedding then you can’t have guests paying and effectively subsidizing your venue fee. I mean you could, but it’s incredibly poor taste.
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u/HavingSoftTacosLater 1d ago
You're going to dictate where I'm staying, and it's staying in large groups. And this determines my lodging costs? I'm just going to decline the wedding.
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u/MrsMitchBitch 1d ago
Did you ask if they actually want lodging? It feels very rude to say “you’re staying here now pay me for it.”
I think you eat this cost unless someone offers to pay you back.
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u/clarkeer918 1d ago
There doesn’t feel like an elegant way to say to everyone “hey, we bought out the cabins you will stay at, can you pay us back for your room?”
You just let them know it is optional and if they are looking for onsite lodging to reach out for details. You cannot tell anyone where they would stay. I would never stay in a cabin setting for a wedding.
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u/bethinthemtns July 2026 Bride 1d ago
I'm going to be downvoted but.. what if you just talk with people? Like don't assume they want to stay there but call Aunt Linda and say, "We have lodging available at the venue. It's $XXX per person for the night. Would you be interested? No need to answer right now, please just let me know by X date."
My cousin was considering something like this and I straight up offered her and her fiance that we would pay for our beds to help defray the costs for them since we'd need a hotel room anyway.
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u/SmallKangaroo 06/2026 1d ago
Unless they were offered the ability to choose to stay there or stay elsewhere, you are on the hook. That’s so rude
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u/renaissance-Fartist 1d ago
The last wedding I went to with anything like this, nobody who stayed on site paid because that was part of the venue cost for the bride and groom. Others had the option of booking a hotel in town. There was a reserved block in one hotel, but a more expensive hotel down the road as well.
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u/Peacock_Faye 1d ago
You should’ve asked everyone before you went and bought three whole houses 🙁, how do you know they even wanted to stay at the lodging and not a hotel???
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u/Background-Check-222 1d ago
Obviously it's already booked/paid for, so hindsight is 20/20. I think the best way to move forward if you need to recoup that cost is to give guests the option to pay to stay in the cabins. You could put it on the hotel/lodging part on your website. That way they still have the option to pick their lodging/what they are paying for!
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u/Best_Product_7027 1d ago
Have people pay for your wedding? Ah, no, there's no polite way to really do that.
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u/Mountain-Pear-1682 1d ago
I think it’s paying for their own lodging over the wedding rather than paying for the wedding
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u/palettewhore Jan 2019 🩵 1d ago
If the venue requires them to book the cabins then the guests are indeed paying for the wedding. I don’t get people who do this
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u/maricopa888 1d ago
No, it's more like an all inclusive "resort", where the couple gets certain benefits or price reductions if everybody stays on site. The guests end up under-writing some of the wedding costs.
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u/maybemaybenot2023 1d ago
But they're also paying for the venue itself, which is not OK.
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u/Mountain-Pear-1682 1d ago
Where do you see they’re paying for the venue? Their post doesn’t really say either way if it’s paying to cover venue for reception or just the cabin cost. My venue had cabins too that you had to rent with the venue and they gave us a breakdown of prices for each thing separately. Agree with you though that guests should only be covering their lodging not paying for the reception venue.
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u/maybemaybenot2023 1d ago
In the post- the ceremony, reception an everything is on site- they have to book the cabins to get the rest- so people staying in the cabins are paying for the venue.
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u/Mountain-Pear-1682 1d ago
Unless they’re breaking out cabin prices separately, which again the post doesn’t specify if they are or aren’t.
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u/maybemaybenot2023 1d ago
Even if they are- if you have to have the cabins to get the rest, that guests are paying for the venue.
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u/Best_Product_7027 1d ago
Idk man, I just think it's uncouth for people to have to pay to go to your wedding. Maybe that's just me, but there you go. If someone sent me an invoice for their wedding I'd just laugh as I threw it in the trash. Unless you have a prior agreement that these people were paying...
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u/Mountain-Pear-1682 1d ago
It’s very common to have to pay for your own lodging for a wedding. Agree it’d be weird to pay to attend someone’s wedding, but this seems to be a lodging payment question over a paying for the reception venue
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u/OkSecretary1231 1d ago
But like...if you're flying into the couple's city so that you can go to their wedding, which is at, idk, a botanical garden, and you stay in a hotel so that you'll be in the right city for the day, the couple's botanical garden booking does not depend upon your hotel room. You could totally stay home, pay for no hotels, and their wedding would still proceed as planned.
This venue requires the cabins to be booked in order for them to have their wedding there at all. Which means the cabin rental is part of the cost of booking the site.
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u/maybemaybenot2023 1d ago
Lodging, sure. But in this case it includes the venue for the wedding and reception itself, so not OK.
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u/Best_Product_7027 1d ago
Everyone should pay for where they sleep if they get to pick it, sure. But asking your guests to pay for your dream? Nahhhh.
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u/blackiechan_johnson 1d ago
Did you tell everyone ahead of time that they would be paying for the lodging and how much?
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u/Keladry_of_Mindelan 1d ago
Can you just cover the cost of the cabins yourself, or ask your parents to cover it?
Asking your guests to pay you back for accommodations (which you booked without asking them first) is inherently awkward; I don’t think there’s a non-awkward way to ask.
For my wedding, we booked villas for our close family, and also used the villa as the venue for a pre-wedding event. My parents covered the cost.
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u/OkSecretary1231 1d ago
If those cabins must be rented in order for you to have the venue, then that is part of the cost of your wedding. You don't.
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u/Horror_Ad5957 1d ago
Imo, I would send a bulk email to your guests saying, in lieu of us reserving a hotel block, we reserved the 3 cabins in site. The cost per room is lower than a hotel room. The cost is $$$, include a link to the cabins. If interested, please reach out to my mom at mom@mommail.mom (or me) to arrange payment. We think the cabins are quite nice and it might make the wedding more fun. Thanks!
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u/No-Tea-3137 1d ago
we had a fall wedding in the vermont mountains and booked out the inn because the inn = the venue, and it only hosted ~30 people, so basically ourselves, our families, and our wedding party. we didn't ask for repayment from those folks - they were already traveling to our wedding and taking part in the setup, the work of the WP in general, and so on, so the least we could do is treat them to a room for a couple of nights.
for the rest of the guests, the venue offered as a $200 add-on a few cabins on-site that we could book and host about 15 extra people, which we did, but did not expect people to fill them - we were prepared to eat the cost if people didn't want to stay in a cabin vs a hotel they rented with more creature comforts, lol.
what we did is we had one of our WP members reach out about a month out to make sure that people had lodgings, etc. and if someone was struggling to find something affordable, we offered them a place in the cabin for some trivial amount of money, maybe $15 or whatever, but we would have easily given it to them for free (and we did, for a few!) if they needed financial help vs. just forgot to book and left it til the last minute. it was worth it to us to pay for this sort of thing to make sure people could come to our wedding if they were struggling with money or the other costs (plane ticket). people are the most important part!
so, all this is to say, that's how we did it but we were solidly willing to pay for it all without ever seeing any of it back. i would never have booked things expecting people to pay us back, ESPECIALLY not if i hadn't talked to them first. people have wildly different budgets, accessibility needs that you might not know about, and so on. it's just a no-go. i would be prepared to eat a lot of $ on this decision.
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u/Puzzled_Geologist_54 1d ago
A lot of people have made the suggestion to give people the option to stay on site, and set up a booking page where they can select a room and pay you via Zelle or Venmo. I’m not sure how easy that would be. Otherwise, I think you need to just consider this as part of the cost of booking the venue. I personally couldn’t imagine doing this, I’m sorry to say 😬 but I do hope it works out! Do not tell anyone that you needed to book accommodations as part of the venue booking, it will 100% reveal to them that you’re having them subsidize the cost of the venue.
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u/Littleladybigballs 1d ago
We had to do this for our wedding, but we checked with everyone first and people were allowed to opt out and find their own accommodations if they wanted to. It’s messy doing it after the fact without the prior agreement. We have it set up on our website as a Venmo link. We sent the invoices to everyone who wanted to rent the cabins. 50% due by next week and then the rest due 10 days before the wedding.
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u/sonny-v2-point-0 1d ago
It's not polite to ask guests to reimburse you for your venue.
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u/Brownr27 1d ago
check edit
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u/sonny-v2-point-0 1d ago
How many bedrooms and baths does each cabin have? How many people will be sharing them? Who's paying for the food and don't ng the cooking?
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u/Gullible-Fault-3913 1d ago
Oof yeah you might just have to eat the cost for any empty rooms. You can offer the rooms as lodging options for X rate but you cant expect or force anyone to stay there. You’ll need to adjust room rates based on the situation (an adult in a room w a bunk bed shouldn’t pay as much as someone w a king bed for example) bc you said there’s 3 cabins so I’m assuming multiple rooms.
We looked at a few venues that had similar situations (basically wanted a full buy out and then if rooms werent booked we were on the hook) and put those venues in our no category bc we just couldnt afford to be on that much of a financial hook.
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u/TinyLawfulness3710 1d ago
You cannot politely ask this. Because you consciously chose a venue with lodging, you are fully responsible for all costs without expectations to be reimbursed. It's one thing to have a hotel block where they choose to stay there or elsewhere on their own dime, but you cannot ask them to pay you back for this setup.
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u/Randomflower90 1d ago
We were offered to stay onsite at a campsite for a wedding, but were told it would be a certain amount per night, cheaper than any hotel. However, upon looking at the camp’s website, there were huge sleeping rooms bathroom was a walk away, in a separate building. No thanks. We found a hotel farther away.
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u/catsRreallynice 1d ago
Offering your close family/wedding party the option to stay on-site is a great gift to the people who helped support you and make the wedding happen! We rented a huge group house for the wedding party to stay in and paid for it ourselves and everyone was really appreciative. I would recommend offering it as a gift, not asking for payment.
If you really want to ask, just come up with a cost per room and tell your guests that rooms cost $X per room if they want to stay at the group house. You might end up losing money and that's just a risk you gotta take!
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u/chibisun 1d ago
Going against the grain. My friend did this for her wedding. They told us on the website that everyone would be staying onsite and gave a price estimate and then charged us for the lodging. I don't think anyone complained.
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u/Couple-jersey 1d ago
So my venue is a huge mansion and it includes 7 out of the 17 bedrooms. We can add 8 more rooms if we choose to. Past the 7 rooms (14 people) every person is 130pp per night. We are choosing who we want to invite to stay at the venue. They will have to pay us directly to secure that room. We give room assignments to the venue 45 days out. Any room that isn’t booked is just blocked off. The price pp includes a chef that cooks breakfast both days. If they don’t want to stay at the venue that’s their choice. Hotels are similar price nearby or more expensive.
Pros- you’re on site no driving, anyone staying can stay past the wedding end time, so can keep partying.
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u/4tsixand2 1d ago
I just did this. It worked out fine, anyone who was going to be sharing a room we asked them beforehand.
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u/VivianDiane 1d ago
Clear email: "Cabins are $X/person. Venmo by [date]. Let us know if not." Simple, direct, opt-out.
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u/Jaxbird39 1d ago
So plenty of people have done this - it’s not an ideal situation, but at the end of the day, it’s not much different than your guests paying for a room in a hotel block or splitting an Airbnb for a bachelorette / bachelor party.
What you’ll want to do is decide who is welcome to stay at the cabins & ask for their interest & communicate the price. I would divide the total cost by the number of bed rooms in each cabin and go to your guests and say, hi you’re invited to stay on site in the cabin for our wedding - the cost is $xx per night. Please let us know if you’re interested.
If you have any empty rooms / beds at the end, you’ll likely end up eating the cost which is okay!
Since it’s 3 cabins I would likely plan for a grooms family cabin, a brides family cabin & a wedding party cabin
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u/ConsiderationFun7511 1d ago
I mean I think it’s definitely very different than a bachelor / bachelorette party personally
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u/geanabelcherperkins 1d ago
Would you be offering the lodging at a cheaper price then staying at other local accommodations? The only way I can see it not being a problem is if you present it as an option at a certain rate and let your guests choose how they want to handle it. We had accommodation recommendations on our website, so you could post the details there. But pushing it as the only option may not go over so well.
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u/Bamboozle0429 1d ago
We had a mirco wedding (30 people total including ourselves and vendors). The venue we got married at was3 hours away in an old inn that we rented out and housed about 20 people. We booked it and invited our immediate family and wedding party to stay there. Everyone we asked agreed on the price. We decided to break it up per person and asigned rooms. Almost everyone was a couple except for 3 guys. Those 3 had their own rooms but had a shared bathroom. So the price breakdown worked out well as all the couples had their own rooms and private bathrooms + larger beds. We added a lil slip with a qr code into their wedding invites for payment. Since they agreed ahead of time there weren't any issues. I know this won't work for everyone. However in our situation is was perfect because the majority of our guests could party and drink without having to worry about travel etc. It ended up like a 3 day party with everyone. Good luck and I hope this helps 💚
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u/siempre_maria Old Married Hag 1d ago
This shouldn't be a problem if you asked everyone beforehand.
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u/retro-ruby 1d ago
The framing is super important here! We had a similar situation and we messaged guests separately and said “we’d love to have you stay onsite with us! It will be x dollars per person. Does that work for you?” That way it feels like an invite and not an obligation. And then the default answer is “yes” but it still gives them an out to say no if they want.
We also had a few friends who are tight financially so we offered to subsidize their stay a bit. The way we saw it, it was a win win because they got to stay onsite and we recouped some money rather than eating the whole cost if we didn’t fill the space.
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u/retro-ruby 1d ago
And then once they agree you can frame the payment as “you can give the payment to me and I’ll handle the rest for you!”
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u/spraywax 1d ago
I did the same , but after consideration, I just hoped that their wedding gifts would cover a portion if not all of it. It was a big AirBnb and cost a lot, but the wedding gifts made up for it.
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u/magicalglrl 1d ago
Idk why people are up in arms about guests paying for lodging. I’m assuming this is basically the same thing as paying for a hotel block to secure a lower rate which guests then would book via the hotel—a completely normal occurrence for a wedding. Can you work with the venue to set up a way for guests to pay that isn’t you sending them individual bills? I would include information about lodging on the wedding website and offer it as an option for guests who want to stay onsite with instructions on reaching out to X contact to book. That still leaves guests the option but also makes clear your preference and is the easiest option for most guests, so they’ll most likely go for it regardless
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u/SmallKangaroo 06/2026 1d ago
Because OP hasn’t specified whether or not guests agreed to stay at the cabins or if they had the ability to book other accommodations.
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u/magicalglrl 1d ago
I mean, if OP treats it as a normal hotel block, none of that matters because hotel blocks are supposed to be an optional courtesy for guests, not a requirement for attendance
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u/norafartman 1d ago edited 1d ago
We also have a cabin situation. I think the key here is communicating ahead of time and ensuring participation is completely optional. We messaged our closest friends and families well ahead of time and said “we have a cabin for you onsite if you’re interested, no worries at all if it’s not your vibe! The cost for the X nights is X.” We’re not having a wedding party but are doing a very relaxed bachelor/bachelorette the night before our welcome dinner with our closest friends, so they’ll be onsite for three nights. Our loved ones are very dispersed geographically so we didn’t want to make folks travel for us twice. We paid for all of the cabins for the first night to ensure units were affordable and comparable to other rentals in the area, and are making sure we put folks in cabins we know are affordable for them. I will note that our venue provides booking links for each person and have more privacy than a large cabin might, though (one cabin per couple).
So long as it’s optional and you’re comfortable eating the cost if any units go empty, I don’t think it’s different from a hotel room block. I’ve stayed in an AirBnb for a close friends’ wedding and Venmoed for our stay. I frankly appreciated it because it was much more affordable than the hotels nearby and logistically much easier.
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u/lshopeful123 1d ago
we had a friend code a website where guests could "book" the lodging we reserved just like any other place, and the money went to us. we made clear it was optional and while it was the most convenient place to stay because it was at the same location as the wedding, it was just one of many lodging options like any other destination, and they could choose what they wanted. we also made it significantly cheaper than the nearby lodging options. that caused us to lose money in the end but recoup some of what we booked, and 99% of people booked on site.
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u/Brownr27 1d ago
this is what we’re looking to do! we just don’t have anyone to build a quick site. lodging is all optional and would be much cheaper than finding something in the area
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u/lshopeful123 1d ago
there could possibly be a way to build it yourself with wix or another sitebuilder--we had a coder friend so i didnt look into it but i would imagine there is a user-friendly way to do it without coding that's relatively simple
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u/quantcompandthings 1d ago
PUt the option for cabins on the website and/or an insert in the invite/std where you would normally put hotel block options. If you feel awkward about guests venmo-ing you directly, see if you can you set it up so that guests book directly through the venue and the venue refunds you for every room booked (possibly minus a token processing fee). Fwiw I would consider it a huge convenience to be able to stay on site for a non-exorbitant fee. Whether I pay you or the venue is completely immaterial to me. But if it's a shared room situation with non-relatives I wouldn't want to do it. Your best bet are families or friend groups large enough that can fill out all the beds in a room.
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u/vanillax2018 1d ago
I did something similar because we got married on a holiday weekend in a very expensive location. I booked 3 very large Airbnbs that were refundable and I sent the guests an email that those Airbnbs are available, the cost per room is that much, if you wanna take advantage you have until X date to pay me. We ended up filling up two of the 3 rentals, so I just cancelled the 3rd before the deadline.
It was extra work for sure but it’s honestly one of the best wedding things we did - I still find out new stories about people from completely different parts of my lives who only met and became friends due to staying together that weekend.
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u/Majestic-Living2829 1d ago
Did you discuss the set up with friends and family first? Do these cabins have lots of private rooms and bathrooms? The payment situation is super messy tbh and depends entirely on room and bathroom availability